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Croatian Conservative Campaigners Claim Rapid Success

Members of two separate conservative citizens' initiatives, ‘The People Decide’ and ‘Truth about Istanbul Convention’, who began collecting signatures on Sunday for separate referendums, say they are doing remarkably well.
Thousands protested in the city of Split against Croatia’s impending ratification of the Council of Europe’s ‘Istanbul Convention’, 2018. Photo: BIRN/Sven Milekic

A civic initiative in Croatia dubbed ‘The People Decide’ whose campaign concerns proposed changes to Croatian election law, has stated that in only three days, by Wednesday, it had collected 78,000 signatures.

The second initiative, ‘Truth about Istanbul Convention’, who collects signatures for a referendum on the so-called Istanbul Convention says it has mustered 60,000 signatures.

Both campaigning groups need to collect more than 370,000 names, equal to 10 per cent of the total electorate, by May 27, if they are to have legal grounds to seek a referendum.

The first campaign concerns proposed changes to Croatian election law. It calls for the number of MPs to be cut from 150 to 120, for an increase in preferential voting on party slates from one to three votes, and for a restriction in minority MPs’ voting rights.

Journalist Viktor Ivancic condemned the proposed changes, saying their main aim was to reduce the rights of the country’s ethnic Serbs, who make up about 5 per cent of the population.

“The basic idea,” he told BIRN, was to “formalise the segregation of the political representatives of national minorities through the constitution, especially those representing the Serbs, and to divide parliament into first and second-class members”.

The prominent Croatian Serb politician Milorad Puovac has also condemned the proposals as a segregationist measure.

Supporters of the campaign say they want a political system that is more accountable to voters.

Opponents of the proposed changes see the “The People Decide” initiative as closely tied to “In the Name of the Family” – the conservative NGO that organised a controversial but successful referendum on same-sex marriage in 2013.

The second initiative, meanwhile, which says it has mustered 60,000 signatures, seeks a referendum on the recently-approved implementation of the so-called Istanbul Convention on violence against women – which has aroused the ire of socially conservative and religious groups throughout the region.

Although both movements espouse a socially conservative ideology, they insist that they operate separately and independently from one another.

When asked on the TV show “Otvoreno” why they do not act openly together, a member of “The People Decide”, Zvonimir Troskot, said each group had its own constituency. “In pluralism, people gather around issues that are most important to them,” he said.